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Disrupting a covert Iranian influence operation

openai.com

21–30 of 155 posts

Re: Disrupting a covert Iranian influence operation

#21
I don't think people should jump to any "this is the level Iran is at?" conclusions.

Many nations employ "patriotic citizens" in an informal and semi-formal fashion along with trained propaganda and "infowar" experts. I know of China and Israel doing this but I'd assume it's everywhere.

Re: Disrupting a covert Iranian influence operation

#23
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Russia, China, Iran, and Israel https://www.npr.org/2024/05/30/g-s1-1670/openai-influence-op...

This doesn’t pass the sniff test. Each of these countries has domestically developed, strong LLMs. And even if they did not, they’d have absolutely no issue running the larger FOSS ones. You don’t need GPT4 to generate political drivel.

Indeed, Russia has YandexGPT and Gigachat which are more than enough for generating articles (although they're far worse at reasoning).

Re: Disrupting a covert Iranian influence operation

#24
post #6

The only thing noteworthy about this is how small-scale this is, and that the perpetrators don't even bother/have the means to set up their own infrastructure.

The noteworthy thing is that OpenAI is reporting it. They’re signaling that they are proactively monitoring and investigating this activity, and that they’re willing to work with federal agencies while self-policing their negative externalities. This is all part of an ongoing conversation with lobbyists about “safe AI,” and it’s ultimately done to show that OpenAI is making an effort to mitigate the risks that regula…

It's a good thing for them to report this, but for a company that decided against watermarking their output they are kind of complicit.

I know they might lose their teens and college demographic if they do it, but if it's truly this world-changing tool that they claim than not watermarking is scraping the serial number off the guns they're selling.*

* Maybe a shitty analogy

Re: Disrupting a covert Iranian influence operation

#25
post #15

From a Google search it looks like this is one of the articles in question: https://teorator.com/index.php/2024/08/12/x-censors-trumps-t... I requested the Internet Archive grab this copy: https://web.archive.org/web/20240816210620/https://teorator....

Looks exceedingly good to be Ai-generated. Also, it appears to be slightly pro-Trump, which doesn't sound like in Iran's interest.

It is clear to me that Russia, Iran, North Korea are playing a zero-sum game. Anything that creates chaos in US politics (or European politics) is in their interest. Donald Trump represents chaos.

Re: Disrupting a covert Iranian influence operation

#26

I wonder if it would be possible to get a list of countries that can have influence operations using ChatGPT and countries that can't.

I don't think that would matter. I live in the US and I would guess there are plenty of people in this country that work for countries that aren't allowed to use it. Same goes for other countries having people who work for the US.

I really don't think it would take that many people to run propoganda campaigns with modern tools.

Re: Disrupting a covert Iranian influence operation

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks exceedingly good to be Ai-generated. Also, it appears to be slightly pro-Trump, which doesn't sound like in Iran's interest.

It is clear to me that Russia, Iran, North Korea are playing a zero-sum game. Anything that creates chaos in US politics (or European politics) is in their interest. Donald Trump represents chaos.

> Russia, Iran, North Korea

You're missing China & Israel: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/may/30/o... / https://archive.is/y0V3A

And, according to OpenAI, they're interfering not just in the US: https://www.thehindu.com/elections/lok-sabha/openai-says-sta... / https://archive.is/RWn8X

Re: Disrupting a covert Iranian influence operation

#28
post #15

From a Google search it looks like this is one of the articles in question: https://teorator.com/index.php/2024/08/12/x-censors-trumps-t... I requested the Internet Archive grab this copy: https://web.archive.org/web/20240816210620/https://teorator....

Looks exceedingly good to be Ai-generated. Also, it appears to be slightly pro-Trump, which doesn't sound like in Iran's interest.

From the article:

> Some of the X accounts posed as progressives, and others as conservatives.

My impression is that these influence campaigns know that they need to produce a LOT of content that appears to reflect different opinions and perspectives if they're going to appear to be "real" - that way they can build trust with an audience before attempting to influence them in one direction or another.

Re: Disrupting a covert Iranian influence operation

#29
post #10

The linked PDF (Storm-2035 [1]) from Microsoft is more detailed and interesting than the blog post. However, what's missing from the reports is how they detected those operations and how they tied them to different groups. There's a lot of claims being made without showing all of the supporting evidence. To give them the benefit of the doubt, they likely want to keep their detection methods secret to make circumventi…

Having worked at Microsoft for almost a decade, I remember chatting with their security people plenty after meetings. One interesting thing I learned is that Microsoft (and all the other top tech companies presumably) are under constant Advanced Persistent Threat from state actors. From literal secret agents getting jobs and working undercover for a decade+ to obtain seniority, to physical penetration attempts (some…

> Microsoft is one of the few companies that goes toe to toe with world governments every day of the year.

It's also the company which was the first and longest member of PRISM, meaning very deep ties to the less savory parts of the US gov and {five,nine,fourteen} eyes. I know it's a boring advice, but I'd take this kind of declaration with a truckload of salt.

Re: Disrupting a covert Iranian influence operation

#30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks exceedingly good to be Ai-generated. Also, it appears to be slightly pro-Trump, which doesn't sound like in Iran's interest.

It is clear to me that Russia, Iran, North Korea are playing a zero-sum game. Anything that creates chaos in US politics (or European politics) is in their interest. Donald Trump represents chaos.

They want to sow discord. Manipulating US politics in any meaningful way is difficult to do. It's easier to divide and conquer and turn your enemy against itself.

In my opinion the West is already doing a good enough job at polarising itself, doesn't need much help from the enemy.

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